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Taking the 'No' out of Lotus Notes: Activity Theory, groupware, and student groupwork

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posted on 2023-06-08, 06:18 authored by John Halloran, Yvonne Rogers, Mike Scaife
This paper describes a study that examined why groupware that was tailored to support collaborative student learning (Lotus Notes) was unsuccessful. In particular, it examines why the tutors' aspirations of helping the students to collaborate were not met. It was found that students tended not to use the groupware, preferring other, self-developed support tools. Our study shows that the failure was multidetermined: there was a complex interacting set of factors including software use problems, systems integration issues, conflicting tutor/student perceptions of the value of using the groupware, and conflicts in each group's view of how best to complete the course. There has been interest in using Activity Theory to approach multidimensional analysis in CSCL, but existing Activity Theory-based frameworks can be difficult to apply to instances of collaborative learning marked by conflict. To address this need, we use an Activity Theory-based analytic tool called the Activity Space. The tool is also used to show how multiple changes could be made to improve the potential for groupware to be used as intended.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Page range

pp 169-178

Pages

10.0

Presentation Type

  • paper

Event name

CSCL 2002 International Conference on Computer-supported Collaborative Learning

Event type

conference

Department affiliated with

  • Informatics Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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